Tuberville cautiously optimistic leading into Texas A&M week

The undefeated Texas Tech Red Raiders have trailed at the intermission in three of their four games this season, often as a result of defensive breakdowns or other mistakes.

Regardless, second-year Tech coach Tommy Tuberville said the Red Raiders have grown as a team leading into Saturday’s home game against rival Texas A&M.

“We’ve gotten better,” Tuberville said. “I don’t know if we’ve gotten good enough to compete with a lot of these top teams that we’re getting ready to play. I think our guys have a lot of confidence. You know, we keep shuffling our defensive lineup … This week we’ll be a little stronger. We’re getting Scott Smith back.”

Smith, a defensive end, will return this week following a one-year suspension for a violation of team rules.

Also, according to the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, Tech coaches will monitor practice to see who starts at linebacker. Last week, Tech inserted freshmen Blake Dees and Sam Eguavoen for Daniel Cobb and Cqulin Hubert after Kansas took a 20-0 lead.

“We’re more athletic than we’ve been,” Tuberville said. “Hey, it’s just experience. It’s what’s caught up with us. We’ve given up a lot of yards. We’ve given up a lot of points. Our savior has been our offense. We’ve been able to score points. Last week we were able to get the ball back for our offense to score points.

“We’ve made progress. I like our athletic ability. The entire team, I like how hard we play. We just continue to shoot ourselves in the foot in a lot of situations on defense.”

Talking to the media on this week’s Big 12 teleconference, Tuberville touched on the likelihood that this year’s game could be the last against Texas A&M for the forseeable future. A&M has accepted an invitation to start play in the Southeastern Conference starting in 2012-13.

“This game’s been played a long time,” Tuberville said. “When you have that carryover from players recruited by both teams, and then a lot of fans in a lot of areas that have their acquaintances that went to each school, it always brings for a good rivalry.

“We wish this thing could have lasted longer. But they’ll have their chance to make their non-conference schedule for the future and we’ll do the same.”

Tuberville said continuing the game will depend on several factors.

“Yeah, we’d like to play it,” he said. “I don’t know. Our nonconference schedule is set for a couple of years. It’s probably going to depend on, obviously, their schedule. They’re going to have only so many non-conference (games), and then our schedule in terms of what we’re going to do with our conference. So, there’s a lot of ifs ands or buts about that deal.”